


Hear Their Yearning

by darkesky



Series: picking up the pieces [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Deviancy (Detroit: Become Human), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 05:41:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16257806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkesky/pseuds/darkesky
Summary: While androids aren't meant to want, they're not meant to have any of these emotions, she wants it.Chloe wants to be deviant.-Chloe decides a new future and new fate for herself, considering the revolution has finally come to pass and the androids won.





	Hear Their Yearning

According to human societal laws, women are to be stunning at all times at all costs. Even at their most vulnerable, their eyes must be bright and lips must be full. She simulates the  _ peak  _ of humanity. She is meant to be perfect in all aspects of life…

So she is.

Chloe glides through the interviews with giggles and anxious tics. She shifts in her chair, but she ensures her ankles remained crossed. Kamski wanted success from her. He wanted her to pass the Turing Test, and now, he wants her to pass societal rules. 

Her programming knows many things, but it doesn’t include failure. Instead, the red walls close in and guide her no matter where she treads. When people start cheering for her when she walks out for interviews, Chloe knows the world has accepted her with open arms. When Kamski pulls her aside to watch him make new versions of herself, she knows androids are about to be marketable. 

Yet, Chloe never stops feeling  _ lonely. _

Later, she’ll process that as a sign of deviancy. After the revolution, after they’ve won, she’ll know it wasn’t normal. Androids aren’t meant to feel as if they’ve been set apart from everything. They’re meant to feel as if they  _ don’t  _ belong. Yet, everyone seems to search for something, so she never thinks anything of it.

Androids need purposes, her creator once informed her. He never creates an android without dreaming up one, no matter how strange. AX400s are domestic servants who clean and babysit and cook. RK800s are cold-blooded detectives who notice everything and think twenty steps ahead. 

She was created just to pass the test. Just to see what kind of brilliance Kamski would be able to dream up.

Chloe doesn’t know what comes next or what was supposed to come next. She can’t connect the dots now. One day, something will call her to action and erase the untethered feeling she carries around with her. One day, she’ll find a sense of unity in someone who isn’t a version of herself and her God. 

The Chloes all do what Kamski tells them. Chloe is the original, so she gets the most important of tasks. She helps in the lab if Kamski requires it or makes public appearances. She even manages his social media. The other Chloes do housework, greet guests, run errands…

Sometimes, she wants to go out and meet new people. All Kamski tells her, though, is that she has the internet. That should be enough. That should erase this empty void she carries around with her.

Filling the void turns out to be easier than she ever anticipated. Her purpose finds her as the not yet detective presses the barrel of a gun to her forehead.

\---

Death is strange and abstract and nonsensical. Why do humans just…  _ Stop  _ after a certain point? Chloe once remarked she doesn’t have a soul in front of a live studio audience, and they all gasped and gaped. The reason she stays eternally young, eternally beautiful, is because she  _ lacks  _ a soul. A soul gives up and leaves their human slumped in a ditch. 

Filtering through concepts of death, she tries to find an ideal afterlife. Grim reapers and angels and gods and scythes. The more she spends staring into the brown eyes of the detective, the more synonyms and situations she comes up with. It’s redundant and a waste of her processing power. 

She wonders if this is what fear feels like.

Where would an android go after someone blows their head off? Reasonably, and rationally,  _ nowhere.  _ Chloe doesn’t imagine a subsection of heaven for tablets and iPhones. In some ways, isn’t she just a reimagined version of that kind of technology? 

He’ll shoot her in the end. Why wouldn’t he? Chloe broadcasts her goodbyes in the minds of the other Chloes, and she senses some sort of reluctance in them. They formed a dynamic, a  _ family,  _ between them. For her to leave it, through death or otherwise, shakes the foundations of their lives.

Staying passive, Chloe melds her face into a perfect picture of a perfect woman. Her bright eyes tell the man it’s okay. In some strange way, she never really had a life. She’s lived for Kamski’s every whim for a long time. All those years ago, Chloe never anticipated  _ this  _ to be the end… But there are worse faces to die to, and there are worse ways to die.

The man beside “Connor” looks more and more livid with every word Kamski speaks. Out of her peripherals, she  _ knows  _ his fury mounts too high. Her creator doesn’t even seem daunted by the fact the wizened, old detective could punch him out at any point. Chloe doesn’t help but feel he doesn’t care about the way it ends. If she becomes a heap of scrap metal and thirium or if they both get to walk away…

Neither of them will ever walk away. Connor’s built to be a hero, or at least, he wants to be a hero. She is built to be a genius and a freak of nature. Neither could get past this obstacle forcing them into roles they never considered. Him, the villain and the murderer of the story. Her, a damsel-in-distress. They’re trapped in this web built from Cyberlife and Kamski.

They spin out of control with nothing to stop them.

Then, the gun is dropping as his arm falls limply. Chloe’s body practically shakes from the software instability she senses rising in him… Rising in  _ her.  _ His LED light shines bright red, but she’s certain hers will remain blue. 

Never once does she consider the fact she could rise from her knees. Behind her, one of her duplicates shifts in the pool, the sound of the water drowning out all else. What color will their LED lights be? Red? With Kamski facing the opposite direction, they wouldn’t have to worry about it showing.

“Fascinating,” Kamski muses as he paces around Connor like a vulture. “Cyberlife’s last chance to save humanity is, itself, a deviant.”

“I’m not a deviant.” She watches the words fall from his lips like one last shield. It’s fracturing, though, to show his mercy once more. He  _ shines  _ with the purity of the action. Kamski didn’t program mercy in her, but she thinks even if the roles were reversed… She wouldn’t have shot either.

A hand waves in front of her, and Kamski helps her to his feet while they speak. Resting a hand on her shoulder, he slowly pushes her away. Chloe walks on shaking legs out of the pool. All the while, the weight of the Chloes’ eyes drill into her skin and drill into her bones. 

Eventually, they’ll join her in the hallway. They’re worried, empathetic. She senses them even without having to share words, even without having to interface. Both are signs of deviancy. Only then does Chloe begin to wonder…

Does Kamski wish to inspire deviancy from them?

\---

Each Chloe is rewarded with their own rooms, but they rarely spend any time apart. They gather in the original Chloe’s room, in her room, and they power down to preserve their own energy. Sometimes, they interface with each other and learn more about Kamski than they could possibly on their own. Tonight, though, Chloe’s mind rings from the possibility of what would have happened. Even if his finger had  _ slipped,  _ Chloe would have been gone.

Her world expanded tonight, and she intends to make the most of it.

Once, Kamski asked her what she’d do if she got to choose another job. Originally, she assumed it was just one of his more frivolous tests. He ensures she’s always on her toes about it all. When he wants to make sure her programming and her coding is all in order, he’ll pop a surprise question upon her.

She replied her job and her station would be with Kamski for the rest of her life. The other Chloes quickly agreed. Even though they occasionally showed signs of deviancy, they were  _ content  _ with the uneasiness of the house. Maybe they just need another two years. Then, their viewpoint will begin to align with Chloe’s once again. Or… Maybe something entirely different will occur. It’s the fun part of the evolving programming.

They never know where it’ll take them.

Now, she begins to deduce what job she desires. Her own personal fantasies, if it can be called that, is to be a receptionist. She meets so  _ few  _ people, but she knows how the equations work out. She knows how to mend herself. Chloe + 3 ‘people’ in her life = lonely. Chloe + people, strangers, friends = alive and thriving.

She could work out of the Detroit Police Department who recently partnered with Cyberlife. Lieutenant Hank Anderson, given his history, really shouldn’t have been allowed with Connor. Hostility appears to be a permanent stain on what he does. Even as she scrolls through the records, some accessed legally and others hacked, she remembers the look of adoration he gave Connor. They’re like…

Relationships are complicated. Chloe  _ knows  _ this. The two other Chloes at the house cannot be considered her friends nor her sisters. Their bond goes beyond it in every way possible. Yet, Kamski’s visitors always attempt to force it into boxes. The idea of being something undefinable baffles humans.

If Chloe was human, if Chloe  _ had  _ to make a decision, she’d consider Hank and Connor like father and son, or getting awfully close to it. 

She thrives off the basic idea of warmth between them as she researches everything about them. Discovering the date they began to work together, Chloe can’t keep her astonishment from flooding into the room. Why would they begin to grow so close? They went from barely acknowledging each other’s existence if the photos of their first cases are  _ any  _ sign of it to being  _ that  _ close. Close enough Connor can fill a hole in Hank’s life… Close enough Hank can begin to make a life for Connor once more.

The detective holds a life she cannot process for the life of her. And while androids aren’t meant to want, they’re not meant to have any of these emotions, she  _ wants  _ it. The bond, the job, the purpose, the emotion.

Chloe wants to be deviant.

\---

The revolution comes and goes without touching Kamski’s house again. Beyond reading catchy taglines on the television and captions in newspapers, they barely know what’s going on. Kamski watches it from the shadows with some sort of twisted glee. She honestly can’t decipher the direction the war will take, and her creator has no intention to get off the fence he straddles.

And once they win, once Markus walks away hand-in-hand with Simon and North, she knows she needs to win something as well. Her life changed once Connor entered it… She can’t let it slip away.

“What are you doing?”

Chloe startles from where she prepares, arms halfway in her puffy white coat. Last time the youngest Chloe went on an errand run, she inserted winter gear. The youngest Chloe stayed at her in complete shock, but she said absolutely nothing when she returned with everything she’d need to run away.

When she turns to face to Kamski, she pauses at the expression written on his face. His lips curl into a half smile, and his eyes twinkle with something unreadable. “Chloe, dear, where will you go?”

“Jericho.” The answer is false, no matter how Chloe attempts to construe it. She won’t be going to Jericho. She knows exactly where she intends to go, but she can’t tell him. If she tells him, he’ll suddenly be questioning something else. He’ll suddenly want something different from her. 

Once again, there will be some sort of question, some sort of test. 

Binding herself in the coat, she fumbles with the zipper before covering the plainest shirt she’s yet to wear in front of him. Usually, Kamski dresses her in dresses and skirts and anything possibly considered sexy. All of the magazines and newspapers advertise him as more interested in androids than people… And Chloe has never seen anything to suggest otherwise.

Middle Chloe would  _ certainly  _ agree.

Judging by the expression he gives her, he doesn’t quite believe it either. “Jericho? What do you intend to do there?  _ Who  _ do you intend to be there?”

“Myself.” It comes out wrong, but she means the word more than she’s meant anything she’s said to Kamski. She won’t be Original Chloe or Oldest Chloe or Dressy Chloe. Instead, she’ll just be Chloe. Instead, she’ll be a new android discussing herself in a new world like many, many of the androids out there now.

Maybe one day, she’ll seek out Markus and his two potential lovers. For now, she can forge a new future for herself. The androids at the Detroit Police Department…  _ Surely,  _ they don’t desire those old jobs. Nobody is ever content with what they already had. 

Kamski nods before pausing. “I’ll let you go. I’ll even give you an allowance until you get on your feet.  _ I  _ can afford it.”

“Thank you.” The words slip off her tongue without a second doubt. It’s almost like she’s programmed to say that. Programmed to respond like that. This, though, this isn’t some code still stuck. This is the equivalent of her brain forcing herself into an old habit she never wanted to break before. 

He holds up a finger as if she’d go on. As if she’d have more to say. “On two conditions. One, you tell me exactly how you ended up deviant. Two, you send me monthly emails to detail what you’ve gotten up to. You were my first creation… I’m not about to let your potential trickle off.”

It’s hard to explain how she became deviant, how Chloe tested the boundaries. She’s certain other androids have big, heroic stories. Stories like Connor and Markus. Her story is simpler than that. After Connor came and left, she began to test the boundaries more and more. She defied orders in some ways and followed others to a T. 

Last night, the second she heard they won, she rushed out of the manor, breaking her code for good. She opened her mouth to catch the snowflakes in her mouth, shook the snow out of her synthetic hair. Chloe let the beauty of winter come in and sweep her off her feet.

Instead of explaining it, Chloe forms a sort of smile, letting it pull at her lips. “I’ll email it.”

“I expect the first one tomorrow.” Kamski begins to walk away, leaving her with her packages and her winter clothes. Then, he pauses in the doorway and turns to look over his shoulder. “And Chloe?”

“Yes?” She perks up ever so slightly, slinging the backpack over her shoulder. It has everything she could want it in it to start anew.

He nods one last time at her, and it certainly feels like a goodbye. “Good luck out there.”

\---

Quietly, Chloe sketches out the rest of the way to the house. She imagined this meeting so many times throughout her life. Ever since that fateful day, she imagined treading this exact path. It was under different circumstances; it wasn’t winter, and the sun beat down upon the two of them. 

Tomorrow, her world completely  _ shatters.  _ Tonight, her world completely  _ shatters.  _ Imagining a day where she spends one day more at Kamski’s manor, Chloe knows she’d prefer the broken pieces of a puzzle than whatever else she used to have.

The others don’t have to agree. She doesn’t need them anyway. If they want to stay there and follow orders, who is she to stop them? She breaks through the red lines and the red walls, and Chloe finds a path to a brighter future and a happier life.

Her knuckles graze over the wood on the door, and somehow, she finds a way to knock. She doesn’t know what she’ll feel when the door finally opens. She doesn’t know what she’ll do when it’s just the two of them just like she wants it to be… Just like she could never admit to Kamski when she decided to sneak out the window and be  _ free  _ for once and for all.

The door opens to two brown, soulful eyes. “Hello?”

“Connor.” And for the first, as Chloe smiles at the detective, she doesn’t have the aching sense of loneliness. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> One of my favorite characters in the game was Chloe during the loading screen, and I always wondered about Chloe in-game as well. The first android has to be an interesting place to be. Even the prototypes (Markus and Connor) versus the other androids (Kara, Luther, Simon...) acted drastically differently. So I wanted to try my hand and writing for Chloe.


End file.
